Independence Day was fun. I loved a mind-blowing encounter when Will Smith claws out of his jettisoned fighter jet seat in the desert to stomp, smash talk over to an alien craft to reach the craft and hit the alien in the “face?”, light up his cigar and unload the swag.

All by himself. Alone, out in the desert.

We love this American Ideal in the first pathfinders, mountain men, cowboys, and single moms making a go against overwhelming odds.

Happy Fourth of July. IndependenceDay!

Except, the original Independence Day was a frightening set of promises given by men to each other. They amazingly displayed interdependence by charting the course of a not-yet-birthed country with ideals binding us together even now. Some died. Many lost everything. They made themselves targets.

What would become These United States declared its independence from England and a tyrannical king. That is the independence, and some of that swag belongs to each and every American.

But the “swag” that keeps us winning, growing, failing and learning together is that interdependence. We do so together.

Shivering men sneaked up on Hessian Mercenaries on a freezing Christmas Night, some barefooted, almost none with sufficient clothing depended on each other crossing the Delaware.

Each fought for the man next to him.

No other American said it better than Martin Luther King, “We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” Alabama 1963.

Will Smith ejected from a fighter built by tens of thousands, bankrolled by hundreds of millions, after he was trained for more than a million dollars by thousands, and backed by thousands of people helping him track the alien. Interdependence is still how we do it.

Do not miss this. We stand independent, not under any king’s or tyrant’s thumb. Independence.

But we will continue, we hand this dream to our children, we flourish as we admit and hold up our interdependence, our faith that together we overcome. I would add, with a profound dependence on God and His enduring Providence.

When Will pulled out the cigar and lit up, we all together, celebrated that silly moment because we learned to celebrate together, Yorktown, Appomattox, The Battle of Midway impossible without the courageous sacrifice of torpedo bombers, and 130,000 others resting deep beneath white crosses and stars of David in ten countries … who all died not knowing the outcome of the battles where they gave their lives, for the man or woman next to them. Then for you. For me.

Interdependence fuels our Independence, or we vanish from the face of this earth as lesser civilizations did.

I think I love having them until I compare myself to Mimi, who is juiced beyond belief. I make funny games, listen to them gossip, pontificate on arcane minutiae, and become self-aware. Twice Duke replayed the “You are not allowed to touch my privates” speech. Then, maybe ten minutes later, he called me to the restroom to wipe his bottom after going #2.

Tempted to replay that I should not touch him, Mimi’s look-of-death froze the thought in inaction. True self-awareness awaits further work.

Somewhere in a blur of making blueberry pancakes (thirteen grain); Duke asked, “When did you bow down to Mimi?”

He caught my blank face.

Duke, “You DID bow down to Mimi, right?”

I now looked at Mimi, my wife and girlfriend, and she realized Duke had seen photos in our little digital photo frame over by the toys, and in those photos, a somewhat grainy Colt knelt before Claire one night at the Botanical Gardens. He was asking her to marry him.

She said “Yes”, ergo Duke, Nova and Veda.

So I told him I bowed down to Mimi at the North Pole on the map of the world in the old Dallas Love Terminal, and she said “Yes”. Yes. I bowed down to her.

I thought later I should add, “And when she met my family and still kept me, and when your dad was born, and when her first horse died and we lost a baby between the boys, and when I served in ministry and we always had more month than money.”

Then I thought to add, “And this morning because she loves you, worked two days to prepare this weekend, enriches my life, keeps up with a zillion people, paints beautifully, cares for animals, and is funny, witty and reads.”

Now I have to wait until he returns with his mom and dad, and I should bow down more often, and say so.

The Yankees owe the Red Sox a lot. Not just for the Babe, that is an obvious gift. They owe the Red Sox on a much deeper level that we easily take for granted.

The Red Sox are the exceptional nemesis. Not only that, they are the exceptional nemesis at the most inopportune times. Take this year.

You can write reams about the Yankees farm system and player development paying off unbelievably. You can write about the astonishing group that together is killing the home run total for a team…other teams have one or two bombers, the Yankees’ bat boy seems to be contributing to the total. You can write about a struggling bullpen and starting rotation based on any one game, but not a season.

You can write about the best or near best record in baseball. You can write about the pace for a gazillion wins.

And the Red Sox are right there with them — keeping up. They breathe down the necks of the Yanks or the Yanks, if they slouch for a game, will chase the Red Sox. No one else in the league has a nemesis breathing down their neck, staring them in the face, rejoicing every time they stumble because a half game is the season — facing that one game playoff. Every time either team plays in the other’s house, it is a parachute drop into hell. Not every park knows and already hates your name.

If the Yanks achieve greatness in the World Series, they will all need to sit down and write personal thank yous to — the Red Sox. Or, they can sit and watch the Sox in the Series, and wait for THEIR thank yous.

Honestly, it’s in my script. I was born in America when only a fraction of my friends went to war. A baby boomer; I attended school in a rich district, where being white got me benefits blacks schools did not get. My church brought in Oxford scholars. I had an IQ to enjoy accelerated classes, was a doctor’s kid. Nothing I earned. All came unasked, undeserved.

I sensed I was called by God to serve Him, so I got to do that for years, with pay, and believed down deep, I got special considerations. Get out of Jail Free cards.

The problem with special consideration, though, is that it has nothing to do with me.

Years ago, Jill and I boarded a Delta flight and were happily surprised to find the Captain was Darl Henderson. We had been to his house often, eaten, and skied behind his boat while serving as a youth minister in Coral Gables. I would never have known he flew C130s in Vietnam so close to the action that he got combat pay, if I had not wandered down a hallway to a bathroom (two were in use!) and seen photos on a wall. He was quiet like that.

Darl was kind. We found our seats and buckled in. As we ignored the safety talk, a stewardess asked Jill and me to move to First Class and take new seats — at the Captain’s request.

We ate with real silver ware, a meal we only dreamed about in “last” class, and were too excited to sleep in the huge chairs while Darl flew. Special Consideration.

I think I deserve special consideration, irrespective of any fact that I ever deserved any of it that has come before.

Between our two boys, Jill miscarried in the same month that her horse died. We were devastated. We fell from special consideration, but no more than the one in five pregnancies that abort universally. Even there, at a prayer service where Mildred told us she had born two children full term to lose both, Charles Burnside quietly gave us a check — covering all our out-of-pocket costs to the odd dollar amount we would be billed for! How could he know?

At the core of my faith, I believe, I hope, that beyond a special consideration of salvation, God in Christ plans for me, that He builds on, extends that special consideration. And He does; just like 50,000+ names on a black scar of granite in a hill on The Mall; just like the 168 who died in the Murrah Building blast; or teens murdered in classrooms in schools across the country or on our highways.

You see, we denigrate the term, squandering it on temporary dwellings: bodily and material. We denigrate it as we fear it: God’s special consideration means Heaven, with Him. I want that, but fear it might be today, so, like Freud said, I binge on trivia and seek winnings, upgrades, great prices on steals, and so on.

I fear the ultimate upgrade, the last special consideration. Not Darl. Somewhere flying over battles covered in the Evening News collecting bullet holes in the fuselage except around his seat, he quietly found true special consideration. Like God in Christ, Special Consideration is meant to push us to be creative in making it happen for others.

I assign and grade a lot of writing for college students: diaries, papers, biographical analyses, idea pitches, investor papers and more. So, I now understand a joke from seminary.

So, do you have professor ____?

Yes. Is he interesting?

I think so, but he assigns lots of papers!

How does he grade?

By the pound.

I had the good professor, and he did assign papers and I know he did not read them (mine). I put wild things about him in the papers, and they came back with a letter grade on the front page: all else undisturbed. “A”s mostly.

He assigned a notebook. I bought a ream of notebook paper with hole punches. I divided the ream into two halves. I inserted one half in the middle of the front half of my notes, and the other half towards the end of assigned papers. I did not intersperse new pages among my notes, readings, and other printed materials. They remained nice, white blocks of virgin paper in two slots.

I made an “A”. It made me sad.

But my students write like that. Many write to fill ten pages rather than to say something. I enjoy the 15% who do write, who do struggle to say something. With some of them I edit everything as mercilessly as Pam Schlueder did for me as an aspiring writer in Journalism 2021 at UT.

My first goal with her was a Pulitzer Prize. My second goal became to receive a paper with more black ink than red ink. She taught me to write.

So today, when a student shows promise I strive to show writing as a craft, a skill. And like playing the piano; you practice hundreds of hours mechanically before genius flows over proficiencies mastered and draws in the listener.

They are shocked when I hand back 60% of their paper and it says what they attempted, only better. More than that, they are shocked when I hand back the paper.

And some are learning to write and communicate. Some even buy into the fact that writing better forces them to think better. Maybe I should join them!

As a young scholar I said trite things like, “We learned about Calvinism today,” and “I studied relativity last week”.

It turns out that Calvin’s voluminous Institutes inspired commentaries, opinions, and reactions to fill hundreds of thousands of papers, books and ministries. It also seems that papers and experiments pursuing all Einstein laid out amount to untold billions of dollars. Trillions if you count weapons.

I barely caught an introduction.

It helps, though, if someone reduces it for me, so I pass a short quiz or pay for a short course and skip the quiz. In a world influenced by academia: I “learned it”.

We memorize Kubler Ross’ stages and think we know death. We say amazing silliness like, “I got married last night!” No, you took a first, possibly easiest step in a journey of a thousand miles and you don’t “know” marriage until you come to the end of yourself and your failings and she somehow, amazingly decides to travel on with you.

“I bought a house last week.” So, you paid cash?

“We were in New York last month. I love New York!” Yes, you love the tiniest sliver, and even those who love her a lifetime cannot live a thousandth of the City.

In seminary, I was thrilled to “learn” the word for “know” is the same as a husband and wife enjoying their most intimate times together that they share with none others. You scratch the surface of that knowing in a decade or so.

I need humility, and out of that a bent to life long learning: in this life and the next. I know that.

I hopped out of the car, arguing with myself whether I get wetter by running or walking in rain, and settled on a fast walk. Winter was not relinquishing her fingers on our weather. This spring it has swung from cold to temperate or hotter four times. I marked each occasion with four rounds of the same allergies.

I kept the rain off with my Yankees hat and a down vest and layers on the sleeves. Jill was not along, so I quickly hunted the three things I needed for dinner and returned to the entrance to Walmart, groceries in two of those ephemeral bags that someone should figure how to build houses using.

And rain came down heavier making people pause before heading into the north wind delivering rain that soaked in the cold to the bone. Then I was out and in it and laughing that I had not used a cart as I opened the door and flung groceries ahead of my hurrying hulk into the driver’s seat. I turned on the car and heater.

And I had parked right in front of the cart return corral so I watched him shove his cart into the corral while shivering. Then the young dad shoved his in behind him, and the shivering lady trying to shrink inside her T-shirt against the elements wheeled by and around the end to push her cart in.

In the cold and rain, they were returning carts and I marveled. I have seen carts stranded in Walmarts….in other cities and neighborhoods. It is a tiny thing for people to return carts in the cold and wet, but it is perched at the top of a slippery slope.

The nigh before I talked to a friend from Syria whose family was nowhere near the gas attacks. Okay, alledged gas attacks. Right. I texted another friend in Nicaragua where unrest was spilling into the streets, and in our little country, people were taking another minute in the cold rain to stack carts to return to service.

In the same instant, putting carts away was as ephemeral as Walmart bags; more stolid against the chaos than I have reason to hope. Someone has smiled on us, but we seemingly attack tiny things that have made us great; like a tower of Jenga blocks, we wonder how many we can pull out without crashing down the whole.

So I sat there warming up as the heater kicked in and a cold spring wind blew — grateful that in the cold, these people’s character had them pushing carts into corrals thinking no one saw, on a day when others do not.